Cite as: 506 U. S. 125 (1992)
Stevens, J., dissenting
reiterated so often that petitioners did not challenge the proposition that the statute at issue in this case "related to" respondent's ERISA plan. It nevertheless is equally true that until today that broad reading of the phrase has not been necessary to support any of this Court's actual holdings.
Given the open-ended implications of today's holding and the burgeoning volume of litigation involving ERISA preemption claims,3 I think it is time to take a fresh look at the intended scope of the pre-emption provision that Congress enacted. Let me begin by repeating the qualifying language in the Shaw opinion itself and by emphasizing one word in the statutory text that is often overlooked.
After explaining why the two New York statutes at issue related to benefit plans, we noted:
"Some state actions may affect employee benefit plans in too tenuous, remote, or peripheral a manner to warrant a finding that the law 'relates to' the plan. Cf. American Telephone and Telegraph Co. v. Merry, 592 F. 2d 118, 121 (CA2 1979) (state garnishment of a spouse's pension income to enforce alimony and support orders is not pre-empted). The present litigation plainly does not present a borderline question, and we express no views about where it would be appropriate to draw the line." Id., at 100, n. 21.
481 U. S. 41, 47-48 (1987); Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Massachusetts, 471 U. S. 724, 739 (1985).
3 Several years ago a District Judge who had read "nearly 100 cases about the reach of the ERISA preemption clause" concluded that "common sense should not be left at the courthouse door." See Schultz v. National Coalition of Hispanic Mental Health and Human Services Organizations, 678 F. Supp., at 938. A recent LEXIS search indicates that there are now over 2,800 judicial opinions addressing ERISA pre-emption. This growth may be a consequence of the growing emphasis on the meaning of the words "relate to," thus pre-empting reliance on what the District Judge referred to as "common sense."
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